With friends like this...

Does Jodi really think she's defending our 'right to exist' with comments like this? The reality is that for Jewish Israelis, there is very little difference between 'Israel as a Jewish state' and Israel. I doubt we'd last six months here with the Arabs in charge.

And I doubt we'd last much longer if we went back to the 1949 armistice lines and allowed the establishment of a 'Palestinian state' in the parts of Israel that are over the 'green line.'

As California thirsts, Israel beats its water crisis - permanently

When I was in the US two weeks ago, I was told that in California, it's forbidden to flush your toilet unless someone has had a bowel movement in it. Meanwhile, here in Israel, we have resolved a water crisis that threatened us with a perpetual drought.

A
hefty tax was placed on excessive household water consumption,
penalizing families with lawns, swimming pools or leaky pipes. So many
of Mr. Zvieli’s clients went over to synthetic grass and swapped their
seasonal blooms for hardy, indigenous plants more suited to a semiarid
climate. “I worried about where gardening was going,” said Mr. Zvieli,
56, who has tended people’s yards for about 25 years.

Across
the country, Israelis were told to cut their shower time by two
minutes. Washing cars with hoses was outlawed and those few wealthy
enough to absorb the cost of maintaining a lawn were permitted to water
it only at night.

“We
were in a situation where we were very, very close to someone opening a
tap somewhere in the country and no water would come out,” said Uri
Schor, the spokesman and public education director of the government’s
Water Authority.

But that was about six years ago. Today, there is plenty of water in Israel. A lighter version of an old “Israel
is drying up” campaign has been dusted off to advertise baby diapers.
“The fear has gone,” said Mr. Zvieli, whose customers have gone back to
planting flowers.

As California and other western areas of the United States grapple with
an extreme drought, a revolution has taken place here. A major national
effort to desalinate Mediterranean seawater and to recycle wastewater
has provided the country with enough water for all its needs, even
during severe droughts. More than 50 percent of the water for Israeli
households, agriculture and industry is now artificially produced.

...

The
turnaround came with a seven-year drought, one of the most severe to
hit modern Israel, that began in 2005 and peaked in the winter of 2008
to 2009. The country’s main natural water sources — the Sea of Galilee
in the north and the mountain and coastal aquifers — were severely
depleted, threatening a potentially irreversible deterioration of the
water quality.

Measures
to increase the supply and reduce the demand were accelerated, overseen
by the Water Authority, a powerful interministerial agency established
in 2007.

Desalination
emerged as one focus of the government’s efforts, with four major
plants going into operation over the past decade. A fifth one should be
ready to operate within months.

Together, they will produce a total of
more than 130 billion gallons of potable water a year, with a goal of
200 billion gallons by 2020.

Israel
has, in the meantime, become the world leader in recycling and reusing
wastewater for agriculture. It treats 86 percent of its domestic
wastewater and recycles it for agricultural use — about 55 percent of
the total water used for agriculture. Spain is second to Israel,
recycling 17 percent of its effluent, while the United States recycles
just 1 percent, according to Water Authority data.

How convenient: Iran claims fighters found Israeli weapons in Saudi embassy in Yemen

Ansarullah sources revealed to the FNA that after
they drove all the 40 Saudi embassy guards out of the embassy and
captured the compound, it found a large cache of Israeli-made weapons
and ammunition.

The Yemeni forces also disclosed that they have discovered documents
showing that the US intends to establish a military base on Saudi
Arabia’s Myon Island near Bab al-Mandeb Strait to protect their own
interests and ensure the security of Israel.

The Riyadh government has also asked Tel Aviv for
state-of-the-art weapons to supply the terrorist groups in Yemen and
forces loyal to fugitive President Mansour Hadi.

In April, senior Yemeni officials disclosed that the Riyadh government has used Israeli-made weapons in its airstrikes on Yemen.

"The Saudis are using Israeli weapons in their raids on Yemen," Yemeni Army Commander Taher Rasoul Zadami told FNA.

The reports said Ansarullah took control of the
Saudi embassy in Sana'a in reaction to the Saudis' continued attacks on
residential areas and hospitals alongside army positions in Yemen.

How convenient.... If only it were true... there would be a much bigger story: There are very few weapons that Israel may sell without American approval (because of the military relations between the two countries - recall this). I guess Iran is afraid of that hot potato.

Muslims to boycott United Airlines?

My first reaction to this Facebook post was "If Muslims are boycotting United, maybe I should start flying it." But on reading the post above in its entirety, I think it's made up. Come on - if you're posting from a flight where you've had a fight with a flight attendant, wouldn't you at least post some details about the flight? Origin? Destination? Flight number? United posted those details in an image that Tahera Ahmad posted here (post embedded below). I'm sure you'll all be shocked to discover that Ahmad is not just any Muslim.

The Facebook post went viral, and a #unitedfortahera hashtag
immediately began trending worldwide. Many tweeps have threatened to
boycott the airline until it issued Ahmad a formal apology.

According to a metro.co.uk report,
United responded to the incident by saying that they were "a company
that strongly supports diversity and inclusion, and we and our partners
do not discriminate against our employees or customers. We are reaching
out directly to Ms. Ahmad to get a better understanding of what occurred
during the flight. We are also discussing the matter that Ms. Ahmad
describes with Shuttle America, our regional partner that operated the
flight. We look forward to speaking with Ms. Ahmad and hope to have the
opportunity to welcome her back."

Next thing you know, they'll demand that United stop flying to Israel in return for removing their specious boycott.

My bet is that the whole story never happened. Has Al Sharpton taken it up yet?

Here's the second post:

I am truly dissapointed at the latest statement by United Airlines. Unfortunately United has dismissed my entire...
Posted by Tahera Ahmad on Sunday, May 31, 2015

I'll bet she's disappointed. She thought United would prostrate itself without first bothering to investigate whether the incident happened.

UPDATE 4:35 PM

Ms. Ahmad's Facebook account seems to have been taken down (or I've been blocked from it), but she posted the entire second Facebook post on Twitter. I'm embedding it below and will take a screen cap just in case.

Oh my: Benny Begin quits government UPDATED

Likud MK Benny Begin is a rarity in Israeli politics: an honest politician. It's a sad commentary on both Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government's prospects for survival that Netanyahu has in essence forced Begin to resign from the government.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a Facebook post Friday that
while he would “make every effort to incorporate MK Benny Begin into
the cabinet later,” Likud’s coalition partners had objected to changing
the agreed-on number of portfolios per faction, making it impossible to
keep both Begin and Erdan.

Netanyahu’s Facebook post seemingly left Begin no choice but to announce his resignation from the cabinet.

“Over the past few days I have turned to my friends
and partners, the heads of the coalition, with a personal request to
leave our friend, Benny Begin, as an additional Likud minister in the
government,” Netanyahu wrote. However, the coalition partners would not
permit the number of ministers per faction to change and allow Likud to
have 13 ministers.

Netanyahu, who effusively praised Begin in the post,
also wrote that “there is not a shred of truth to the claim that he
[Begin] said he would refuse to resign from the cabinet.”

...

Begin was first appointed minister without portfolio, while Erdan,
who was number two on the Likud Knesset list, remained outside the
cabinet after turning down an offer to become public security minister.
Erdan wanted the Foreign Ministry portfolio, which Netanyahu insists on
holding himself, or a ministerial portfolio that included elements of
both the interior and public security ministries.

When Erdan’s demands were not met, he refused to
join the cabinet. However, last week Erdan agreed to become minister of
public security, strategic affairs and public diplomacy.

Erdan’s appointment angered his fellow party member
MK Zeev Elkin, who was initially given the strategic affairs portfolio
along with immigrant absorption. He then demanded to be made Jerusalem
affairs minister and threatened that, otherwise, he would absent himself
from Knesset votes, which could put the coalition at risk considering
its razor-thin majority (61-59).

Netanyahu subsequently had to break his
commitment to Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat that the Jerusalem Affairs
Ministry would be abolished and its powers absorbed into the Prime
Minister’s Office.

One MK having a temper tantrum is enough to bring down this government. Anyone want to take bets on how long it will last?

UPDATE 3:57 PM

Get a load of these two tweets from JPost Knesset correspondent Lahav Harkov.

It's not that surprising that Begin would have resigned and not told anyone, since he refuses to hire a spokesperson.

Obama raises specter of dual loyalty

President Obama spoke at a Washington DC synagogue last week and tried to convince his audience that he, rather than Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, represents Jewish values. Michael Doran, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense and a former senior director of the National Security Council, found a disturbing undertone to President Obama's speech: Doran argues that Obama was raising the specter of dual loyalty of Jews - a classic indication of anti-Semitism. In this open letter to liberal Jews, he urges them to think about what Obama meant.

Here’s my question. As Obama donned his yarmulke and embraced your
community, did you also catch the hint of a warning? If you did, it was
because the president was raising, very subtly, the specter of dual
loyalty: the hoary allegation that Jews pursue their tribal interests to
the detriment of the wider community or nation. Obama was certainly not
engaging in anything so crude as that; nor is he an enemy of the Jewish
people. But he did imply that many Jews—that is, Jews who support
Benjamin Netanyahu—have indeed placed their narrow, ethnic interests
above their commitment to universal humanistic values. In his view, they
have betrayed those values. And so the warning was faint, but
unmistakable: if Jews wish to avoid being branded as bigots, then
they—you—must line up with him against Netanyahu.

“But the president is right,” many of you would no doubt reply. “Netanyahu’s values are not
my values.” That may well be the case. Yet this is also why it is a
trap for you to accept Obama’s claim that his fight with Netanyahu is a
struggle over “values.” The struggle is not over values.
Rather, at the core of the Netanyahu-Obama grudge match is one issue and
one issue only: the president’s long-sought détente with the Islamic
Republic of Iran.

To be sure, there are other sources of tension between the two men,
both personal and political. Among them is the Israel-Palestinian issue,
which the president dwelt upon at length in his remarks to you—but in
the service of a goal that has nothing whatsoever to do with
Israeli-Palestinian relations. If this sounds too calculating by half,
consider three key points.

But the real issue, says Doran, is Iran.

The president’s sophistry demonstrates a simple but profound truth: his commitment to the progressive values of tikkun olam
is governed by its own “red lines,” and is entirely utilitarian. Which
again raises the question: what was his purpose in stressing this shared
progressive commitment in his address to you, and what was his purpose
in subtly reminding you of the costs of failing to abide by its terms?

The answer, I hope, is obvious. On June 30, Obama will likely
conclude a nuclear deal with Iran. This will spark a faceoff with
Congress, which has already declared its opposition to the deal.
Congress will inevitably pass a vote of disapproval, which Obama will
inevitably veto. In order to defend that veto from a congressional
override, however, he must line up 34 Senators—all Democrats. This calls
in turn for a preemptive ideological campaign to foster liberal
solidarity—for which your support is key. If the president can convince
the liberal Jewish community, on the basis of “shared values,” to shun
any suspicion of alignment with congressional Republicans or Benjamin
Netanyahu, he will have an easier time batting down Congress’s
opposition to the deal with Iran.

Progressive values have nothing to do with what is truly at stake in
this moment of decision. Only one final question really matters: in your
considered view, should the Islamic Republic of Iran be the dominant
power in the Middle East, and should we be helping it to become that
power? If your answer is yes, then, by all means, continue to applaud
the president—loudly and enthusiastically—as he purports to repair the
world.

Will Israel be suspended from FIFA?

I'm going to guess that many of my US readers never heard of FIFA, the international soccer federation several of whose officials were indicted on bribery charges in the US earlier this week. Here in Israel, we are alltoofamiliar with them.

'Palestinian' terrorist and soccer federation chairman Jibril Rajoub is seeking to have Israel expelled from FIFA, which would bar the world's only Jewish state from international soccer competitions like the World Cup. As you can see from the tweet above, the Israeli government believes it's on the verge of a 'compromise' (can't wait to hear what that would entail) that would avert the expulsion.

But not everyone believes that a compromise is in the offing.

Per @peterbeaumont, Pal officials deny they've reached a deal to avert vote on suspension of Israel from #Fifa

Former FIFA vice president Jack Warner, arrested in Trinidad and Tobago
on Wednesday on bribery charges as part of a massive bust of top soccer
officials, previously blamed “Zionism” for a bribery scandal which saw
him forced from the world soccer body in 2011.

Warner surrendered to authorities late
Wednesday in his native Trinidad and Tobago after his name appeared on a
list of nine current or former FIFA officials and five business
executives who “abused their positions of trust to acquire millions of
dollars in bribes and kickbacks,” according to US Attorney General
Loretta Lynch.

Warner resigned from FIFA in 2011 after the
organization opened an ethics investigation into the vice president for
receiving cash “gifts” from former Asian Football Confederation chief
Mohammed Bin Hammam, ahead of the organization’s elections for
president.

After FIFA handed Qatar’s Bin Hammam a
lifetime ban from the soccer governing body for his role in the affair,
Warner lashed out at the soccer body for what he said were various
shortcomings, and vowed to bring down FIFA head Sepp Blatter.

“I will talk about the racism that is within
FIFA. I will talk about the levels of religious discrimination which I
sought to correct. I will talk about the Zionism, which probably is the
most important reason why this acrid attack on Bin Hammam and me was
mounted,” Warner wrote at the time in a 1,400 word letter to the
Trinidad Guardian.

And if you followed the links above, you already know that Blatter isn't exactly fair to Israel either.

Meanwhile, FIFA and the media continue to ignore the real story to which they ought to be paying attention: The 'Palestinian Authority's use of sports to promote terrorism rather than peace.

And the saga continues:

Israel Radio reports that many #FIFA delegation heads say no vote, and if vote, won't pass. Stay tuned.

A fully-owned subsidiary of the
UJA-Federation has sent $5,836,856 to the New Israel Fund since 2002,
according to IRS form 990 filings examined by JCCWatch, with donations
of between $258,000 and $802,000, made each year for the past dozen
years.

The revelation
contradicts the public statements from the UJA-Federation chair Alisa
Doctoroff, past CEO John Ruskay and current CEO Eric Goldstein who have
misled New Yorkers to believe that the umbrella charity has no financial
connection to the New Israel Fund.

The New Israel Fund,
in turn, is the financial banker for a network of organizations that
demonize the Israeli government and the Israel Defense Forces, promote
boycotts of Israeli products and call for international criminal
proceedings against our very own Jewish state.

The findings come on the back of a JCCWatch investigation on
Tuesday that showed that UJA-Federation leadership have been
pressuring former Israeli diplomats, and the office of the
current Consul-General in New York, to give cover for their support of
the New Israel Fund to participate in this weekend's Israel Day Parade.

In 2014, the UJA-Federation reported
on the IRS form 990 that it had assets of $1.382 billion, generating
$76 million in investment income, in addition to the $167 million in new
donations it received from the Jewish community.

Buried on page 7 of its audited financial statements,
under "Additional Notes," the UJA-Federation listed an entity called
the Jewish Communal Fund, of which it is the "sole member" and has
"controlling financial interest," meaning the UJA-Federation owns the
Jewish Communal Fund, "lock, stock, and barrel."

...

Jewish Communal Fund has 25 board members
drawn mainly from the parent board of the UJA-Federation, including its
president, Alisa Doctoroff. As for supervision of the donations, from their annual report:
"All qualified grant recommendations are submitted to the Charitable
Distribution Committee of the Jewish Communal Fund’s Board of Trustees
for approval."

Reading the detail of
their grant-making guidelines, the board has two responsibilities: to
be "committed to supporting causes that promote the welfare and security
of the Jewish community here and abroad" and to "deny any grant request
where the purposes and activities of the recommended charitable
organization are deemed to be adverse to the interests of the Jewish
community."

Tell ISIS we'll accept PayPal

The latest issue of ISIS propaganda magazine 'Dabiq' has promised to bring slave markets to the West. The terrorist organization carried an article justifying rape and slaving women. The group says Michelle Obama is worth just $40.

“I swear by Allah, O you who feign to be knowledgeable and shout with falsehood in every gathering, surely the slave markets will be established against the will of the politically correct,” writes Sumayyah Al-Muhajirah in defense of the terror group’s slave trade. “And who knows, maybe Michelle Obama’s price won’t even exceed a third of a dīnār, and a third of a dīnār is too much for her!” (A single golden dinar = $139 U.S. Dollars.)

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

The beginning of the end of Leftist domination of Israel's Foreign Ministry?

In the past week, there have been two significant appointments to Israel's foreign ministry that have the potential to change the foreign ministry's longtime Leftist slant. Keep in mind as you read this that Prime Minister Netanyahu did not appoint a foreign minister and that it was previously thought that he was holding the position open in the hope that Avigdor Lieberman or Dore Gold would eventually join the government.

First,
she’s a novice who has never held any executive branch position before,
yet will now exercise de facto control over one of the cabinet’s most
important ministries. Technically, she serves under Netanyahu, who
retained the foreign affairs portfolio for himself. But since Netanyahu
already has a full-time job as prime minister, she will largely run the
ministry.

Second, she’s one of the most hawkish members of Netanyahu’s coalition and an outspoken opponent of Palestinian statehood. As The Jerusalem Post’s diplomatic correspondent, Herb Keinon, put it, “Hotovely represents the opposite of everything much of the world...wants to see in Israel.”

Third,
in contrast to appointees like Miri Regev or Haim Katz, whose power
bases within Likud were simply too strong for Netanyahu to ignore,
Hotovely’s support inside the party is tenuous; in the last primary, she
barely scraped into the 20th slot. Nor is she known as one of the
premier’s own loyalists. Thus he was under no political compulsion to
reward her with such a lofty post.

Finally,
there were plenty of other candidates who would seemingly have been
more suitable, including the one many American Jews undoubtedly hoped to
see there: former ambassador to Washington and current Kulanu MK
Michael Oren.

Indeed, Hotovely’s main qualification for the post – aside from being pretty, personable and reportedly speaking excellent English
– would seem to be that she constitutes no threat to Netanyahu, who
notoriously squelches anyone he does consider a potential political
threat.

That’s why so many ambitious Likudniks eventually quit the party
to run their own parties (see Moshe Kahlon, Naftali Bennett and Avigdor
Liberman).

Gordon goes on to make a case for Hotovely being the one to shift the Foreign Ministry's focus away from the West and toward Africa and Latin America. And while I agree with Gordon that there's little hope of Europe ever taking our side again in the diplomatic courts of the world for the foreseeable future, I believe that there's a lot more that Hotovely can accomplish than just keeping countries like Rwanda and Nigeria on our side.

Sunday was perhaps the first indication that Netanyahu intends to have Hotovely remake the foreign ministry and the diplomatic corps: Netanyahu summarily fired the Director General and appointed his longtime confidante Dore Gold to be Director General of the Ministry and to work directly under Hotovely.

Gold, a former ambassador to the United Nations and currently head of
the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, will be working under Deputy
Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely, who was told about the appointment
just prior to it being made public. He replaces Nissim Ben-Sheetrit, a
veteran ministry employee who started out in its administrative track
and then moved to the diplomatic side.

...

[Former Foreign Minister Avigdor] Liberman commented on the appointment, saying that while it was
Netanyahu’s prerogative to appoint his own man to this post,
appointments at the ministry are not ways to give out favors or settle
scores. He also said that “it needs to be clear that new appointments
or changes are not a replacement for clear policy.”

In that
regard, one government source said, Gold was the perfect candidate
because he had a direct line to Netanyahu, and his interlocutors would
know that when he speaks, he is speaking for Netanyahu and with
authority.

“This will give him power and make him relevant,” the official said, noting that Ben-Sheetrit never enjoyed that status.

The
American-born Gold is considered one of Netanyahu’s top foreign policy
advisers. He served as one of his foreign policy advisers starting in
1996, during the prime minister’s first term in office, being appointed
the following year as ambassador to the UN, where he served until
1999. In 2014, he became an “outside” consultant in the Prime
Minister’s Office.

In recent years, Gold has accompanied
Netanyahu on many of his trips to Washington and the UN, and over the
years has been one of Israel’s foremost unofficial spokesmen, speaking
in the media and at conferences around the world on Israeli policy. He
is often sought out by journalists and diplomats because of his
knowledge of the issues, and because he is considered to be close to
Netanyahu, thus reflecting his thinking.

He has also been very active in lobbying policy-makers on behalf of “defensible borders” for Israel.

Hotovely
spoke with Gold after the appointment and issued a statement, saying
that with his rich experience in the international arena, the former UN
ambassador could contribute to furthering Israel’s position in the
world.

For those of you who have forgotten, 'defensible borders' mean that any 'Palestinian state' would be severely truncated.

Dore Gold has done the State of Israel a great service by forcing us to
focus on concrete things that we want out of the 'peace process.' Dore
is fond of pointing out that when you ask a 'Palestinian' what he wants
from the 'peace process,' he will tell you that he wants a 'Palestinian
state' in the areas that are outside Israel's '1967 borders' (for now),
whose capital is Jerusalem. If you ask an Israeli Jew what he wants from
the 'peace process,' he will tell you 'peace.'

Dore is changing
that paradigm. One of the things he believes that Israeli Jews can and
should be demanding from the 'peace process' is defensible borders. His
organization, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, has put together a
collection of essays that sets out in concrete terms what defensible
borders mean. The collection is called Israel's Critical Security Needs for a Viable Peace. It's reviewed by Lee Smith in Tablet Magazine.

The book Israel’s Critical Security Needs for a Viable Peace
is a collection published this year under the auspices of the JCPA with
essays about security and diplomacy by leading figures in Israel’s
security establishment, like Maj.-Gen. Aharon Ze’evi Farkash, former
head of IDF intelligence, and Maj.-Gen. Uzi Dayan, former IDF deputy
chief of staff and a former national security adviser to Prime Ministers
Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon. The volume’s findings represent a broad
consensus across the Israeli political spectrum, and the fact that
Lt.-Gen. Moshe Yaalon—former IDF chief of staff and currently the vice
prime minister—wrote the introduction is evidence that the ideas have
won approval at the highest political levels.

The book pushes
three common ideas, some likely to add to the friction between
Washington and Jerusalem: First, Israel, must not withdraw to the 1949
armistice lines; second, Israel needs defensible borders; third, Israel
must rely on itself to defend itself and not on foreign forces as
proposed by U.S. national security adviser Gen. James Jones, who has talked openly about replacing the IDF with international forces in the West Bank.

The
insistence that Israel must retain the ability to defend its own
borders—a basic attribute of national sovereignty—is the least
controversial element of Gold’s blueprint. The issue is not merely the
inglorious record of U.N. peacekeeping forces—from Sinai to Bosnia and
Lebanon—but also the fact that the international community rarely sends
its blue helmets into the middle of a real shooting war, which is what
the West Bank would become if an IDF withdrawal left Hamas and Fatah at
each other’s throats and eager to gain credit for launching terror
attacks on Israel.

The concept of defensible borders is closely
tied to the drawing of 1949 armistice lines, commonly and incorrectly
known as the 1967 borders. As Gold explains in his contribution to the
volume, successive U.S. administrations since Lyndon Johnson’s have all
recognized the danger in Israel withdrawing to those borders. George
Shultz, one of President Ronald Reagan’s secretaries of State, explained
that “Israel will never negotiate from or return to the 1967 borders,”
and the Clinton Administration reaffirmed the Reagan White House’s
concept of defensible borders. However, it was during Clinton’s Camp
David negotiations that then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak abandoned
the idea of defensible borders in the hope of a radical breakthrough
with Yasser Arafat. With the outbreak of the Second Intifada and peace
nowhere in the offing, the George W. Bush Administration pledged not to
hold the Israelis to the Clinton parameters and returned to the
traditional U.S. position. “It is unrealistic to expect that the outcome
of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the
armistice lines of 1949,” reads an April 14, 2004 letter from Bush to then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

How will this play out in the field? One indication might be this link I received in an email this morning from JCC Watch's Richard Allen.

The UJA-Federation’s top brass have been twisting the arms of
Israel’s diplomatic corps to provide cover for supporting the New Israel
Fund marching in the Israel Day Parade, according to emails obtained by
JCCWatch.

The strategy to use the Foreign Ministry as their beard came to an
uncomfortable public end last week, when the Spokesman for the Israeli
Consulate in New York had to make a statement to deny what UJA-Federation
CEO Eric Goldstein had told Talkline Communications radio host Zev
Brenner on March 30. In an appearance on the show, Goldstein said, twice
actually, that “the government of Israel, the Consul General’s office,
very much, emphatically, want us to allow these groups to continue to march.”

The consulate spokesman told Arutz Sheva last week
that at “no point did any of the parade’s organizers consult with the
Consulate or with someone acting on its behalf regarding the New Israel
Fund’s participation.” The newspaper quoted the spokesman directly as
saying, “never, ever, did the Consul-General, or someone on his behalf,
or any of the Consulate’s employees, say anything favoring the NIF’s
participation, either explicitly or implicitly, in a hinted manner or in
public, in secret or openly.”

The oddly worded distancing of the Consul-General’s office from the
UJA-Federation comes as emails obtained by JCCWatch show Goldstein and
former UJA-Federation president Jerry Levin, indeed, reaching out to
Israeli ambassadors for exactly that kind of cover.

The email trail leading up to Goldstein’s foot-in-mouth routine,
and reproduced below, casts a dark shadow on UJA-Federation leadership
who were able to co-opt important Israel diplomats to publicly boost
their cause of defending the New Israel Fund.

The exposure of Federation efforts to force parade organizers to accept the New Israel Fund, and the disavowal of interference on behalf of the NIF's behalf by the Consulate may have come on a direct order from Hotovely. And if it did, it's long overdue. In the past, I doubt that the Consulate would have issued such a clarification.

Here's hoping that Hotovely and Gold will bring about an end to the Leftist domination of the Foreign Ministry, which goes back to the days of Shimon Peres, Tzipi Livni and others. That would be a welcome change.

This is not a parody: 'Hamas has detained suspects'

At least one rocket fired from the Gaza Strip
hit southern Israel on Tuesday night, as alarms sounded across the
region, the Israeli army said.

There were no immediate reports of
injuries or damage from the rocket, which landed near the town of Gan
Yavneh, outside Ashdod, according to an IDF statement.

The projectile — a Grad missile — was located minutes after sirens sounded in the Lachish region and Ashdod.

It was unclear how many rockets were shot at
Israel from Gaza. According to the IDF, initial signs pointed to one,
though other reports put the nubmer as high as five.

...

There was no immediate claim of responsibility from Hamas or other terror groups in the coastal enclave.

However, an Israeli official said Jerusalem
holds Hamas responsible for all attacks launched from the enclave, and
the group was reportedly evacuating buildings and bases Tuesday night
ahead of an expected Israeli retaliation.

A source in Gaza said the firing was the
result of an internal dispute inside the Islamic Jihad terror group,
which has included kidnappings of people in northern Gaza.

The source said Islamic Jihad recently appointed a new commander to oversee the northern region of the coastal enclave.

The new commander was supposed to start his
new position today officially, but his predecessor opposed it, sparking
clashes between the two commanders’ supporters.

The new commander’s men then kidnapped two
operatives working under the former commander and, in retaliation, the
predecessor’s followers decided to fire rockets at Israel.

Hamas security forces are now searching the
area from which the rockets were launched and have detained several
suspects, according to the source.

Most land tenders announced during 'peace talks' were approved by Abu Mazen

David Makovsky, a member of Martin Indyk's 'negotiating' team, told an audience at the Begin-Sadat Center two weeks ago that most of the contentious land tenders announced during the 'peace talks' were actually approved in advance by 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen . This is from the first link.

During the nine months of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that ended
in failure in 2014, 62 percent of Israel’s publicly announced tenders
for housing beyond the Green Line were earmarked for the 1.9% of West
Bank land that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had once
consented would remain in Israel’s hands.

David Makovsky, who
was a member of US Secretary of State John Kerry’s negotiating team
during this period, pointed out this little-known fact during a speech
Tuesday at a conference on US-Israel relations that took place at Bar-
Ilan University’s Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

Makovsky,
a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that
Israel was more “geographically cautious” with settlement announcements
during the negotiating period than many realize.

“It would have
been helpful if that could have been made public,” Makovsky said,
explaining that for political reasons that was not a possibility.

This geographic caution was not stated publicly but was the policy.

Announcements
of settlement plans during this period were a huge bone of contention,
with former US Mideast envoy Martin Indyk, who headed the team
Makovsky was a member of, placing much of the blame for the breakdown
of the talks on Israel’s settlement policies. He said during a speech
last year that “rampant settlement activity – especially in the midst
of negotiations – doesn’t just undermine Palestinian trust in the
purpose of the negotiations, it can undermine Israel’s Jewish future.”

In
2008 Abbas reportedly turned down an offer by thenprime minister Ehud
Olmert for Israel to annex 6.3% of the West Bank to incorporate the
major settlement blocs into Israel in exchange for 5.8% of land within
Israel and the corridor from the West Bank to Gaza. Abbas reportedly
countered with a proposal for a 1.9% land swap, apparently the area
where most of the housing tenders were announced during the 2013- 2014
negotiations.

Isn't it amazing that the Israeli government chose not to deflect John Kerry's pressure by pointing this out at the time?

US branch of Muslim Brotherhood, Obama confidantes: 'Honor Islamic terrorists, not US troops'

The Council on American-Islamic Relations - the US branch of the Muslim Brotherhood - urges Americans to honor Islamic terrorists this Memorial Day, and not US troops. Yes, you read that correctly....

You read that right. As nearly all Americans come together on
Memorial Day to honor those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for the
country’s freedom and safety, two CAIR officials spent the holiday
weekend differently: questioning whether U.S. troops deserve to be
honored and tweeting that the country was “established upon white
supremacy.”

Yet, on May 23, Zahra Billoo, the radical executive-director of CAIR’sSan Francisco Bay Area chapter, tweeted that she “struggles with Memorial Day each year” about whether to honor American soldiers who died in wars:

She also quoted another CAIR official, Dawud Walid, the executive-director of CAIR’s Michigan chapter, as questioning whether they should honor American soldiers that died in “unjust” wars and occupations.

That’s a direct insult to American soldiers currently serving in
Afghanistan and those that have returned from Iraq, as CAIR officials
consistently describe those wars with that terminology. Billoo quoted
Walid as saying:

Billoo did, however, find one “soldier” she felt comfortably honoring.
On May 26, she promoted an article from the anti-Semitic and
anti-American Nation of Islam that asked for help for a “black liberation soldier” named Imam Jamil al-Amin:

Al-Amin was a member of the Black Panthers terrorist group and was convicted of murdering a police officer in 2000. He is also anti-American, stating “if America doesn’t come around, we’re gonna burn it down,” and “I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.”

Al-Amin also said the U.S. Constitution is “diametrically opposed to what Allah has commanded.”

THIS is who CAIR wants to honor on Memorial Day? A racist, anti-American cop-killer?

More 'credit' than she deserves?

On the 15th anniversary of Israel's flight from southern Lebanon, Arutz Sheva discusses the role of former radio broadcaster and current Labor party MK Shelley Yachimovitch in bringing about the order to surrender.

Yechimovich, who grew up in a communist household and admitted to
having voted for the communist party in at least one national election,
started her journalistic career as a reporter for now defunct radical
socialist newspaper Al Hamishmar.

She ascended to dominance as an activistic journalist who became
known as a leading spokesperson for radical feminism – a creed also
referred to as genderism, and defined by neo-conservative Professor Ruth
Wisse as “if not the most extreme then certainly the most influential
neo-Marxist movement in America” – which was imported into Israel in the
1970s and 80s.

Yechimovich's genius was the framing of demands for withdrawal from
the IDF's self-styled security belt in Lebanon as products of a
"feminine wisdom" that was lost upon Israel's “macho” decision-makers.
By doing so, she brought the considerable power of Israel's genderist
journalists into play, and these were joined by male journalists, too,
in a uniform chorus clamoring for a swift retreat.

Another editor in Kol Yisrael's newsroom, Dr. Hanan Naveh, would later disclose in a public speech that three editors in Kol Yisrael's
newsroom had decided to bring about the withdrawal of the IDF from
Lebanon. He mentioned Yechimovich and her colleague, Military Affairs
Reporter Carmela Menashe, as spearheading the effort. Naveh made clear
that Kol Yisrael amplified reports on casualties and setbacks
suffered by the IDF in southern Lebanon. This reporting sapped public
support for the war effort.

Through near-daily interviews, Yechimovich and Menashe succeeded in
turning a tiny group of four peaceniks from northern kibbutzim – the
Four Mothers – into a hugely influential movement. This campaign began
in 1997 and kept going until the withdrawal from Lebanon.

Israel Radio has behaved in this manner regarding other issues. It's no secret that Israel's government-funded broadcast media is particularly Leftist. For that matter, so are other parts of the Israeli media. And while Yachmiovich gets a lot of 'credit' for keeping the 'Four Mothers' campaign in the news, she's far from the only one at fault.

At the end of the day, Israel's media makes the news rather than reporting on it and displays an extreme left-wing bias. While Yachimovich was guilty of giving the Four Mothers far more exposure than they deserved, she was far from the only one at fault. Many others had the opportunity to stop the bias or to give alternative explanations an opportunity to be heard.

The anniversary of the liberation of the South in the twenty-fifth of May, the "Ambassador" newspaper visited military sites for Hezbollah, including a tunnel located in a border point forward very sensitive. It is true that technology already tunnels of the enemy discovered that its implications in the war in July, but the style evolution. Change the type of cement. It changed the way the ventilation and methods of packaging food and weapons have changed. Electricity is available to 24 from 24 during generators placed underground also. As for the food, no longer depends on the tins. It became specialists feeding preparing food prepared for storage, so as to ensure the fighter during the war to get his need of food and energy for weeks. Each bag has three packs written on each of them to its content of food, in addition to health benefits, where the fighter to eat sequentially selected in advance, in order to ensure receiving a complete and balanced meal. These shares are not for consumption only during the war, but in the days of processing and preparation, Vmqaumen to get their food routinely.

The readiness of the resistance suggest that the war will break out today or tomorrow. The food is ready and the band has a logistics counting all units of the food and distribute it to all sites and bunkers, it has traditionally replaced five months before the expiry. In the tunnel, the air is no different from the outside. Machines pull moisture to protect iron from rust and existing ventilation machines are also present, as emergency exits right and left. Concerned did not run out a small detail.

Having missiles became jacketed Bnailon lugged him in the air and placed inside anti-moisture material, concerned did not forget to leave her side blades so that the fighter can open them quickly at the moment of the war.

Who thinks that Alemradan fighters defy boredom Ballho or long wait mistaken .. narrowed years several months later and narrowed decades years, and if the war was yet to come, it may come days, so, the work in the construction of new fortifications and tunnels restless on the clock, instead of tens thousands of rockets ready for launch, there is no harm hundreds of thousands, note that the drilling is done manually and is strictly rudimentary equipment to draw attention. The backfill resulting from this process, Faisar to fill bags and then carried to the relatively distant places where they can be sprayed in the fields and then covered with leaves up to fraternize with nature, because survival in bags, you may draw the enemy's point of view.
From visiting the southern border and meet with resistance, he realizes that "the Party of God," the main structure in the face of the Israeli threat not changed. It goes on a mission to Syria, is due to be completed as soon as its location. Do not vacuum or vacancy in any site in the hierarchy of the party, even if for a few seconds. The alternative for each fighter went to Syria or on vacation. Key leadership positions they never leave the south. "Mr. Jihad" and all his team are firm in their places. They are responsible for the readiness of their sector to address any possible attack, and also missile force, is supposed to be ready ambushes, which is an integrated system all of which may not be limited to containers, booby, but include a weapon against armor and support firearm.

Sounds like it could yet be a hot summer, God Forbid.

I am back in Israel now. The Shavuot holiday immediate follows Shabbat. Here in Israel, it is only one day (everyplace else, it is two). Therefore, I will be back online God willing on Sunday night.

Thursday, May 21, 2015

Obama administration trying to bribe Israel to accept Iran deal

The Hussein Obama administration is trying to bribe Israel to just be quiet and accept Iran's becoming a nuclear power, according to twostories in the Times of Israel (Hat Tip: Sunlight).

According to the story at the first link above, the US plans to 'compensate' Israel for a 'quiet acceptance' of the US consenting to Iran becoming a nuclear power.

The package could include an increase in the
number of F-35 fighter jets the US is to supply Israel, and additional
batteries for Israel’s anti-missile defense systems, according to
reports in both Haaretz (Hebrew) and Yedioth Ahronoth this week.

A senior Obama administration official told
Yedioth that “the White House is willing to pay a hefty price to get
some quiet from the Israelis at this point. We are surprised the demand
has not been made.”

They're surprised? I'm not. This isn't about money and it isn't even about getting more military equipment. And by the way, am I the only one who notices the irony of the Nobel Peace Prize Winner offering military equipment to a former ally to get them to acquiesce in their sworn enemy stepping up to a new level of military power?

But the newspaper also quoted an unnamed Israeli source as conveying a more ambivalent stance about the reported talks.

“If we come with demands at this point, it
would mean that we have given up our objections to the deal, and now it
is just a matter of at what price. If Israel believes that the deal is
bad for its security, it cannot appear as someone who gave up in the
end,” the paper quoted the source as saying.

According to the reports in both Haaretz and
Yedioth, the US-Israel talks revolved around enhancing a previously
negotiated deal to supply Israel with 33 F-35 aircraft, the first batch
of which was expected next year. The total number of jets could go up to
50, Haaretz reported.

By the way, the Sunni Muslim Gulf State are being offered similar 'compensation packages'....

According to the second story, the State Department and the Pentagon have already approved the 'compensation package.' But listen to what it includes:

And the US is now claiming that Israel 'asked' for the deal, while Israel is claiming that this has nothing to do with Iran.

According to the agency, Israel requested the sale, which only includes types of weapons Israel already has.

“The proposed sale of this equipment will
provide Israel the ability to support its self-defense needs. These
munitions will enable Israel to maintain operational capability of its
existing systems and will enhance Israel’s interoperability with the
United States,” the statement read.

...

A Defense Ministry source told Israel Radio
the deal had nothing to do with Iran nuclear talks or any other conflict
in the Gulf region.

A report in Israeli media Tuesday indicated
the US and Israel were discussing a so-called compensation package that
would see Washington sell Jerusalem advanced weapons, including more
F-35 jets, in exchange for the Netanyahu government’s quiet acceptance
of the emerging nuclear deal with Iran.

So instead of stopping Iran himself, Obama is giving everyone else in the Middle East the capability of doing so themselves (that's what the bunker busters are for). Nobel Peace Prize? What could go wrong?

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Congressman: 'I felt safer in Israel than in New York, Chicago... or Baltimore'

For those of you who fear visiting or moving to Israel because it's 'unsafe,' Representative Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga) has a message for you.

“The whole time we were there, of course, we had security with us,
but there was no restrictions on travel, we never felt threatened one
bit — unless you’re threatened by the merchants in the Old City trying
to get you to come in their shops,” Loudermilk told Washington Watch, the radio show of the conservative Family Research Council.

“In fact, I can say that we felt safer in Israel than we would in certain parts of New York City or Chicago,” Loudermilk said.

“Yeah — or Baltimore, I would think, as well,” interjected host Tony Perkins.

Obama's Middle East policy collapse a question of priorities

The “sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq” that Barack Obama and
Joe Biden hailed as one of Obama’s “great achievements” in 2014 has
regressed into chaos as a result of Obama’s premature withdrawal of
American troops. But it isn’t just Iraq. Syria is the closest thing to
Hell on Earth. Iran is working away on nuclear weapons and delivery
systems. Yemen has fallen to Iran’s proxies. Saudi Arabia is looking for
nuclear weapons to counter Iran’s. ISIS occupies an area the size of
Great Britain. Libya, its dictator having been gratuitously overthrown
by feckless Western governments that had no plan for what would follow,
is a failed state and terrorist playground.

It seems as though things couldn’t possibly get worse, but they
almost certainly will. We are seeing the fruit of a set of policies that
were based on the false premise that problems in the Middle East are
mostly the fault of the United States. Not only were such policies
misbegotten, they have been executed incompetently. The resulting
collapse is occurring with sickening speed.

John doesn't even mention that none of these hotspots is President Obama's priority for the Middle East. Indeed, the President's priority for the Middle East - indeed for all his foreign policy - is the creation of a 'Palestinian state,' which he apparently sees as a panacea for all his foreign policy miscues. He has gone so far as to threaten the new Netanyahu government with the withdrawal of support for Israel at the United Nations.

Monday, May 18, 2015

Message to French Jews: It's time to leave

Buttes Chaumont Park in Paris (pictured) looks lovely, doesn't it? But on Friday afternoon, it nearly became a death trap for a 16-year old Jewish boy who was attacked by a group of Arabs.

The 16-year-old boy, who was wearing a Kippa (skullcap) at the time,
was attacked while returning to his home to prepare for Shabbat dinner.

According to French news service JSS, he was then approached
by four men, which the report described as looking North African and
between the ages of 17-20. The men robbed him, took his shoes, and
shattered his phone into the ground.

During the assault, two of the attackers held the victim down while a
third repeatedly delivered blows to his body and head, injuring one of
his eyes severely.

According to a witness, another man - also described as North African
- approached the group, but instead of helping the victim proceeded to
verbally assault him by calling him a “coward,” and then advised the
attackers to “break” the teen.

The attackers fled when a witness called the police. A report was filed with the police at the scene.

The Bureau National de Vigilance Contre L’Antisemitisme (BNVCA),
which monitors anti-Semitic attacks in France, has publicly pledged to
help the victim and his family, and has asked the police to make every
effort to identify, question, and detain the attackers.

The Buttes Chaumont district is home to many Jewish families, and has
recently been targeted on numerous occasions, including attacks on
Jewish businesses, and a recent shocking attack on a Jewish mother by three assailants of African origin.

The attack took place in Paris' 19th arondissement, which has a large Jewish population. I wonder if US President Hussein Obama will classify this incident as another 'random attack.'

In any event, for French Jews, the message ought to be clear: It's time to leave France. Jews aren't welcome there anymore (if they ever were).

About Me

I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com